I have been noticing some very nice art on the walls of hotels and restaurants and on the pages of decorating magazines. Perhaps you have noticed it, too. I am referring to book pages that have images drawn or painted or printed on top of them. Since I happen to have an 1898 unabridged dictionary that came from my grandfather’s house, I thought that I would try printing images on top of the pages on my home computer/printer. Here is the frist one that I did.
I told you that I am a “fernatic,” so naturally I tried printing a fern first. I took a page from the old dictionary and made a color copy of it. I don’t want to send the old and brittle paper through the copy machine. Then, I found an image on my computer of a fern….and I made a copy of it, went to Microsoft Word and pasted it to the page. I had to do a little tweaking along the way….it needed to fit the margins of the page a little better and in some cases, made larger. But, when I hit “print,” and saw it emerge on the color copy dictionary page, it was worth it. I liked the first one enough to do another.
I think that this one was even nicer because the leaves on this fern are broader and they appear to be done in watercolor on the finished copy. I had some framed prints that I was tired of, so I put the above fern prints in the mats. I used ordinary craft paper to back them and this is what they look like.
Next, I tried printing the image of a chair. I think that a series of framed chair images would be nice.
So, I looked on the internet and found this handsome image printed on sheet music.
…and this architectural print with helium balloons.
You get the idea that you could just about print anything that you want on a copy of an old book page sheet music, etc. But, what if you have old books like the ones you can buy at the thrift store for a dollar or a dollar-fifty? I found this beautiful wreath from “Simple Joys Paperie.” I think that is is just spectacular. Then, I learned how to make a version of it.
Get an old book at the thrift store or find one that you no longer want. If it is old and the pages are yellowed, all the better. take the cover off of the book using a razor knife and then take pages out and roll them into a cone and secure with clear tape. Use foam core for the back or base of the wreath. Draw a six inch circle (you could probably use a salad plate) and four inch circle within the six inch circle, and a two inch dot in the center. Put a cone at the 12:00 position, the 3:00 position, the 6:00 position, and the 9:00 position on the outer six inch ring…and staple the paper cones into position. Fill in the outer ring, then the four inch ring, and finally the ring in the middle. Then comes the fun part of deciding what to put in the very center. You could use another printed image or you could use jewelry, buttons, or sea shells. Mine is not nearly as nice as the one from Simple Joys Paperie, but here is how it looks hanging in my downstairs bedroom:
I was lucky to find the crown image on the public domain images and I had the crown hanger in the garage. It is not really holding the paper wreath, but I liked having the crown hang above the crown image and I got something else out of the garage!
So, with a little time and some perseverance (if you are not familiar with computer functions like me), you can make something pretty for your own home. Create and be happy!